“United We Spend: Communist Women and the 1935 Meat Boycott”

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Notes

¹ Ann Barton, “Revolt of the Housewives,” New Masses, June 1935, 18.

² Dora Rich, “A Thousand New Members,” The Woman Today, November 1935, 4.

³ Communists no more believed gender roles were “traditional” or natural than do feminists of today. The primary difference is that American Communists argued that gender relations followed the rise of private property and capitalism; therefore, the gender division of labor in the home mirrored the relationship between workers and employer. As capitalism progressed these relationships became more exploitative, so that in time women, like workers, had virtually no status.

⁴ Annelise Orleck, “‘We Are that Mythical Thing Called the Public’: Militant Housewives during the Great Depression,” in Ellen Carol DuBois and Vicki L. Ruiz, eds., Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women's History (New York: Routledge, 2000), 378.

⁵ Lawrence Glickman, The Living Wage: American Workers and the Making of Consumer Society (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999), 12–14.

⁶ Glickman, The Living Wage, 7, 11–12.

⁷ Meg Jacobs, Pocketbook Politics: Economic Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 3–4.

⁸ Jacobs, Pocketbook Politics, 60.

⁹ Annelise Orleck, Common Sense and a Little Fire: Women and Working-Class Politics in the United States, 1900–1965 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1995), 223.

¹⁰ Orleck, Common Sense and a Little Fire, 224.

¹¹ Van Gosse, “‘To Organize in Every Neighborhood, in Every Home’: The Gender Politics of American Communists between the Wars.” Radical History Review, 50 (1991), 133.

¹² Orleck, Common Sense and a Little Fire, 225.

¹³ Orleck, “‘We Are that Mythical Thing Called the Public,’” 380. Communist Dora Rich described the activities of the United Councils in a Women's Council membership drive published in the November 1935 issue of Woman Worker. The Councils, she began, had grown numerically and played an important role in the strikes against high meat, rent, and bread prices. She pushed for membership of housewives and African-American women “the most exploited and are as yet only represented in small numbers.” See: Rich, “A Thousand New Members,” 4.

¹⁴ Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumer's Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003), 18, 24.

¹⁵ Jacobs, Pocketbook Politics, 109–111.

¹⁶ Cohen, A Consumer's Republic, 28.

¹⁷ Kate Weigand, Red Feminism: American Communism and the Making of Women's Liberation (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 21.

¹⁸ Annelise Orleck, “We Are that Mythical Thing Called the Public,” 382.

¹⁹ “Party Structure for Work among Housewives,” 1935, 1–2. CPUSA Papers, Comintern Files, 361.

²⁰ Rose Nelson, “We Strike for Cheap Meat,” The Woman Worker, July 1935, 3.

²¹ “Price Drive Shuts Many Meat Shops,” The New York Times, 27 May 1935.

²² Nelson, “We Strike for Cheap Meat,” 3.

²³ “Boycott of High-Priced Meat Spread by Militant Housewives,” The New York Times, 28 May 1935.

²⁴ Barton, “Revolt of the Housewives,” 18.

²⁵ “Meat Cost Inquiry Promised by City,” The New York Times, 29 May 1935.

²⁶ “Meat Price Fight Will go to Mayor,” The New York Times, 30 May 1935.

²⁷ David Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 204–205.

²⁸ “Meat Price Fight Will go to Mayor,” The New York Times, 30 May 1935.

²⁹ “Meat Prices Here Studied by Mayor,” The New York Times, 12 June 1935.

³⁰ Meat Prices Here Studied by Mayor,” The New York Times, 12 June 1935.

³¹ “Meat Price Fight Will go to Mayor,” The New York Times, 30 May 1935.

³² Nelson, “We Strike for Cheap Meat,” 3.

³³ Barton, “Revolt of the Housewives,” 18.

³⁴ Cohen, A Consumer's Republic, 72.

³⁵ Cohen, A Consumer's Republic, 72.

³⁶ Barton, “Revolt of the Housewives,” 19. Barton also notes that Williams formerly headed the League of Struggle for Negro Rights, the precursor to the National Negro Congress.

³⁷ Barton, “Revolt of the Housewives,” 19.

³⁸ Barton, “Revolt of the Housewives,” 18.

³⁹ Barton, “Revolt of the Housewives,” 19.

⁴⁰ Barton, “Revolt of the Housewives,” 19. “Boycott of High Priced Meat Spread by Militant Housewives,” The New York Times, 28 May 1935. The Times reported that of the cities 4000 Kosher butchers, 3000 closed their doors.

⁴¹ Clara Shavelson, “The Results of the Meat Strike,” Working Woman, August 1935, 7.

⁴² “Directives on the Campaign Against the High Cost of Living,” 26 June 1935, 88. CPUSA Papers, Comintern Files, 361.

⁴³ “The Struggle Against the High Price of Meat,” 27 June 1935, 120. CPUSA Papers, Comintern Files, 361.

⁴⁴ “To District Organizers,” 6 May 1935, 60. CPUSA Papers, Comintern files, 361. In fact, the “March 8^th” directive to which the central committee refers may not have directly instructed a “meat boycott.” One directive found among the party's files instructs women on how to organize housewives. This directive has no date, yet its page number is well before the other directives suggesting that it would be dated months before. It refers to Housewives Councils organized by the UCWW on the neighborhood level, yet does not suggest any course of action. It may be that the original March 8 directive was not preserved. The May 6 directive, dated before the beginning of the New York boycott but after the Los Angeles action, pushes for a “real agitational campaign” on a neighborhood scale against high prices, “especially meat.”

⁴⁵ “Directives,” 88.

⁴⁶ “The Struggle Against the High Price of Meat,” 120.

⁴⁷ “Directives,” 88.

⁴⁸ “The Struggle Against the High Price of Meat,” 120.

⁴⁹ “Directives,” 88.

⁵⁰ Annelise Orleck reports that the boycott spread to Seattle, Chicago, Patterson and other cities across the nation. Yet the two that captured the most attention were in New York City and Detroit. In addition, as far as this author can find, the CPUSA also only claimed credit for the New York and Detroit actions. See: Orleck, “We Are that Mythical Thing Called the Public,” 378, 384.

⁵¹ Orleck, “We Are that Mythical Thing Called the Public,” 379.

⁵² Section Organizer, Section 8, District 7, “How the Meat Strike Started in Hamtramck,” The Party Organizer, September 1935, 15.

⁵³ Section Organizer, “How the Meat Strike Started in Hamtramck,” 15.

⁵⁴ “MEAT: Butchers Blame God and Government for Higher Prices,” Newsweek, 17 August 1935.

⁵⁵ “Experiences in the Meat Strike,” 136 (1935), CPUSA Papers, Comintern Files, 361.

⁵⁶ M. “The Detroit Meat Strike,” Working Women, November 1935, 12.

⁵⁷ “Women Close Meat Markets in Hamtramck,” The Detroit Free Press, 28 August 1935.

⁵⁸ “MEAT: Butchers Blame God and Government for Higher Prices,” Newsweek, 17 August 1935.

⁵⁹ “Women Plan Fight on All High Prices,” The New York Times, 4 August 1935.

⁶⁰ “Women Plan Fight on All High Prices,” The New York Times, 4 August 1935.

⁶¹ “MEAT: Butchers Blame God and Government for Higher Prices,” Newsweek, 17 August 1935.

⁶² “Women Plan Fight on All High Prices,” The New York Times, 4 August 1935.

⁶³ “Experiences in the Meat Strike,” 137.

⁶⁴ “Experiences in the Meat Strike,” 137–138.

⁶⁵ Section Organizer, “How the Meat Strike Started in Hamtramck,” 18.

⁶⁶ “Experiences in the Meat Strike,” 138.

⁶⁷ M. “The Detroit Meat Strike,” Working Woman, November 1935, 12.

⁶⁸ “Detroit Butchers Want Aid of AAA,” The New York Times, 6 August 1935.

⁶⁹ “MEAT: Women Want Big Bad AAA to Let the Little Pigs Alone,” The New York Times, 31 August 1935.

⁷⁰ “MEAT: Women Want Big Bad AAA to Let the Little Pigs Alone,” 31.

⁷¹ “Hurrah for Detroit,” Working Woman, September 1935, 11.

⁷² R. H. Cabell, “Pork Chops and your Dollar,” Saturday Evening Post, 2 November 1935, 23.

⁷³ Landon Storrs, “Left-Feminism, the Consumer Movement, and Red Scare Politics in the United States, 1935–1960,” Journal of Women's History 18:3, Fall 2006, 42.

⁷⁴ Storrs, “Left-Feminism, the Consumer Movement,” 40–42. Storrs notes that Right-wing conservatives used the consumer movement's links to Washington in the 1930s during its Congressional hearings in the 1940s and 1950s to prove that Communists had infiltrated the Roosevelt administration. These accusations eased the passage of legislation that began to scale back the welfare programs established under the New Deal. As a result, social welfare programs meant to benefit the public welfare were gradually transformed into entitlement programs that benefited only a few consumers.

⁷⁵ Storrs, “Left-Feminism, the Consumer Movement,” 48.